Presented by Dr Suzanne Cremen
Hosted by the ASSISI INSTITUTE: THE INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF ARCHETYPAL PATTERNS
Wednesday 16 September 8 pm —9:30 pm EST (USA)
Thursday 17 September 10 am —11.30 am AEST (Australia)
Frederick McCubbin “Lost” (1907). National Gallery of Victoria.
The burning of Australia made global headlines in January 2020, with climate-change fueled fires incinerating over 1.25 billion animals (now almost 3 billion) in an area exceeding that of the California and Amazon wildfires combined. “Australia Shows Us the Road to Hell” wrote The New York Times, responding to images of scorched koalas and blood-red skies. It added that “the political reaction is scarier than the fires".
Understanding the archetypal basis of a culture’s psyche is vital for those called to lead or be change agents in a society. Jung understood that the psyche is not just interior but also collective and social, and that archetypes “belong as much to society as to the individual”. The complexes from which we suffer today may also derive from our cultural wounds and traumas, even when their origins are unconscious. Working effectively with these autonomous complexes requires recognition and appreciation of their archetypal core.
In this lecture, Dr Suzanne Cremen draws on rich imagery and research to discuss and lay out a web of interactive symptoms and complexes in the Australian psyche. She identifies the Orphan archetype at the core of Australia’s cultural complexes, traceable through numerous aspects of art, culture, politics, landscape and history — and the necessity of moving towards an imaginal, archetypal perspective to release its redemptive potential.
Dr. Suzanne Cremen, Ph.D. is the author of From Career to Calling: A depth psychology guide to soul-making work in darkening times (Routledge 2020). She is founder of the Life Artistry Centre for Archetype,Imagination and Vocation (Australia), where she teaches and consults, and serves on the faculty of the Pacifica Graduate Institute (California) where she teaches a course on the depth psychology of vocation. She holds a PhD, two Masters degrees from Pacifica (in Jungian and Archetypal Studies, and Engaged Humanities and Mythological Studies) as well as degrees in Law and Arts. A native of Sydney, her background includes working as a lawyer, conference producer, screenwriter, publisher and holistic career counsellor for adults in midlife. Dr Cremen’s research is published in international peer-reviewed journals. She has chaired symposia and spoken on the applications of archetypal psychology at major international conferences, including in New York, Canada and Australia. She is a past president and honorary life member of the CG Jung Society of Queensland, and an advocate for the therapeutic power of the arts and the archetypal imagination in transforming and healing the cultural psyche.